For years now, animal shelters in Connecticut have struggled to keep up with the constantly growing need in the community. Now, one no-kill shelter is getting a significant donation, allowing them to help more animals.
“It’s just something that we never saw coming. So, it’s so exciting to think about the possibilities of what the end product will be,” said Kiley Treloar, the event and fundraising coordinator for Where the Love Is Animal Rescue, Inc. in Hamden.
Where the Love Is was recently notified that The Allan Louis Loeb Foundation is donating $162,000 to the shelter, as the organization gets ready to dissolve.
“The board had been pretty stable for many years, but then in the last couple of years, we lost some of the folks on the board who were the primary people and relatives of the two brothers,” said Anne O’Connor, a board member of the foundation. “And it became evident that we would not be able to continue.”
The foundation was created more than 30 years ago by Allan’s brother, who also later passed. The mission is, “promoting the well-being and the kind and humane treatment of domestic animals and wildlife and of disseminating knowledge to that end,” according to its website.
The foundation’s last capitol project is disseminating money to several of its partners, including Where The Love Is, A Place Called Hope, High Hopes Therapeutic Riding Inc., Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter, and several local libraries. All of the recipients are nonprofits that celebrate animals and learning about them.
“I think the legacy of the brothers is going to be carried on through these projects that we’re supporting,” O’Connor said.
The money for Where the Love Is comes at a time when the shelter is in need of an upgrade, and more space to care for the dogs.
“We get surrender requests daily. I want to say we saw, like, a 300% increase just over, like the last year,” Treloar said.
Treloar said it happens when people move, run out of money, or in extreme cases, the animals are abused.
“It is just crazy to think how prevalent it is right now,” Treloar said.
In order to keep up, the shelter relies on its fosters and a new sleepover program to get animals out of the building and into a home. The donation from the foundation is expected to help them almost double their capacity on site.
Treloar said they plan on fixing what they have and creating a new building on location that will also include a welcome center. They plan to name the new shelter after the Loeb’s.
“We can’t do this without our volunteers. We can’t do this without supporters, just generous donors. Like, a nonprofit, it really counts on everyone, and we can’t run if a single one of those factors isn’t there,” Treloar said.
Treloar said the shelter is in the early stages on the blueprints for the new space. She estimates they may get started on the renovations in the spring.
